GP leaders have called the situation 'extremely disappointing', and argued the requirements for recruitment have put many GPs off applying.

According to CCG board papers, many areas are now drastically cutting targets, in an attempt to meet them, while others are simply reporting low uptake and slow progress. These include:

NHS Wyre CCG board papers from October show the scheme ’saw a reduction in local target from 50 to 23, based on NHS advice, as the scheme is not delivering as anticipated’

NHS Birmingham and Solihul CCG board papers show it successfully bid £3.6m to recruit 100 GPs. But in May 2018, NHS England adjusted this target to ‘realistic 48 recruits’. As of February 2019, the CCG said three GPs have been recruited

NHS Great Yarmouth and Waverney CCG said in August NHS England 'revised the International GP Recruitment allocation which has been reduced to 41 GPs. This has left a gap of 39 GPs to find through other schemes'

NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG said in September that it acknowledged the trajectory for international recruitment was 'overly ambitious' and reported that 'based on the initial performance, the target was revised down 40 starts over two years across the STP'

NHS Rushcliffe CCG board papers from November showed that although the scheme was heavily oversubscribed, progress was slow and to date there are currently no GPs working in Nottinghamshire, as a result of the international recruitment scheme

But despite the poor levels of uptake, the new five-year GP contract, published last week, announced the international recruitment programme will be extended until 2023/24 ‘to help deliver against the extra 5,000 doctors in general practice’.

The scheme, which was first introduced in Lincolnshire to address the local recruitment crisis, was rolled out in 11 other areas by NHS England: Humber Coast and Vale, North East, Middleton, Heywood and Rochdale, Staffordshire, Mid Nottinghamshire (Mansfield and Newark), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Norfolk and Suffolk, Birmingham and Solihull, Kent and Medway, South East London, North East London.

So far, Lincolshire has seen the most advanced scheme, recruiting 26 international GPs against a target of 25.

Lincolnshire LMC medical director Dr Kieran Sharrock said: 'We managed to recruit more very quickly because we made a very good offer. These were doctors who knew they would need support passing the induction and refresher scheme and they also knew they would need support with passing their language skills and because the offer we made gave them both education and training, it was very attractive.'

But Dr Sharrock said he is not surprised CCGs are halving targets, arguing it 'hasn’t successfully recruited enough doctors' due to language requirements being too high, and labelling the recruitment model 'not appropriate'.

'To come and work in the UK, doctors in Europe need to have an IELTS level to 7 to 7,5. There are only a few doctors out there who already have that level, which is why we said we’re going to find doctors who have an IELTS level of 5 or 6 and train them up to 7.5.

'That opens the market up significantly because you’re going to find a lot more doctors who are able to apply,' he said.

'It’s the same as the calls to say we would have 5,000 more GPs in general, which was a very ambitious target. I think it’s all about the workload. We need to address the workload then people would want to be GPs in England,' she added.

An NHS England spokesperson said: 'NHS England has now recruited more than 70 doctors to the programme and, of these, over 50 are in the country either seeing patients or in observer placements and last week we launched a recruitment campaign in Australia.'

'NHS England has not set local targets but is actively supporting international recruitment,' they added.

Readers' comments (21)

The job inst attractive in the UK, the pressures, 10 minute consulations, the liabilities,the quality of housing,the work life balance, the renumeration,the constant threat of manslaughter charges when you are scapegoated for systematic failings,need I go on.It looks like the GP 'leaders''see no ships' when it comes to the armada sailing towards it.Look at the job first, make it attractive it will attract candidates.Sadly the new contract will not do that.

it's f&£k all to do with brexit, its because the job is shite ..unless you don't want brexit, in which case everything that's crap anywhere is caused by brexit. australia doesn't rely on promises of economic and political union in order to secure international medical recruitment targets . brits have flooded to australia because it's a nice place to be and the working conditions are better. FFS there's more going on in the world that the european union and brexit ..if the job was worth doing we'd have no problem recruiting candidates...that's the issue here, claiming other causes is frankly insulting ..enough with the boring brexit axe grinding , i think the entire country is more than a little board with brexit bull shit

At the end of the day the UK is a tiny little island with little to no natural resources, cramp living space and no real prospect of future development compared to countries like Canada, Australia, China, Costa Rica....